Linking from the thread of my longtime forum friend Samuel Young, who’s grappling with a wide range of reviews for his recent game The Magician’s Burden: from “best thing ever” to “SJW garbage.” I hoped he might take some encouragement in sharing my experience from XoR, but I didn’t want to talk all about my game on his thread. So here you go, Sam, this one’s for you.
Google Play is a fickle mistress. Choice of Rebels spent most of the year at 4.4 there, close to 4.3 (and my Apple Store ratings were at 4.1 or 4.2 for a good while). Those have ticked up to a good enough for me 4.5 as the “y u not FREE?” reviews have got fewer with time.
But I still get plenty of unimpressed readers, and a slight uptick in those could take me back down any time. For recent examples of 1-3 star reviews:
Summary
“If you take a “wrong turn” it can become a micromanagement game, therefore extremely tedious.” “The different terminology just made following the story very difficult”
and my favorite so far:
“There was just way too much… The character you were playing as knew things that you didn’t, and you had to make decisions about things you knew nothing about, which made it impossible to feel immersed–if all the uncommon and unpronounceable (Xthonos? Seriously?) words and poorly explained concepts didn’t ruin that already. There’s a reason high fantasy stories tend to feature sheltered or amnesiac characters–they’re unfamiliar with the worldbuilding, just like the reader, so the complexity of the world is revealed slowly to them, and the writer doesn’t treat them like they already know everything. Here’s a tip: if you have a glossary of terms you made up, you made a mistake. If that glossary is more than one page, you messed up your story. And if someone needs to look at the glossary at the beginning of the story just to get through the prologue, instead of just being used if you need a refresher after leaving, you made a bad story. I really am interested in this world but I feel like I’d need to take a college course to get all the concepts into my head. There was so little effort put into making a good beginning, this game just doesn’t seem like it’s going to be worth the chore it is to make sense of it.”
Now, everything those reviewers disliked was something I did on purpose. I can’t blame them for disliking it; all I can say is that the game they wanted isn’t the one I wanted to write. I haven’t had the hateful anti-SJW spam reviews you’ve had, Sam, but if I had, I’d say all the more vehemently that the game they wanted wasn’t the one I wanted to write. Those reviews kind of roll off me, because I’m ready to stand by my creative choices.
And that’s why the appstore numbers don’t upset me too much. My Google Play rating inevitably reflects the shape of the market, and the market includes all those people for whom I wasn’t writing. That’s why I don’t expect my numbers to ever get all that close to 5. Quality issues aside, my game is one that makes certain creative choices that are bound to alienate some people…and I’m happy with that, even though it costs me some ranking points and some sales.
Now let’s come to my quality issues. You know what stings? The criticisms from people who love the game, who’ve played it enough to really know its flaws. They’re the ones who I think really see the limits of my writing and worldbuilding skills.
For example, one dear friend (@Laguz) wrote me to point out that my terrifying, arcane Plektoi appear to have been designed by fucking morons:
Overheard: the Plektoi design team
“a lot of money and time goes into the creation of a plektos” (immediately fucks them up so they have useless energy-draining additions and excel at nothing, can’t breed, and require more energy consumption than they’ll spend time exerting on the hunt in order to live)
“yep this is fine lads absolutely look, we’ve created a one-use missile with an obvious weak point, eyes, that any sufficiently trained archer can get, despite the fact that had we known absolutely anything about dogs, we could have made them have no eyes at all and still be just as useful”
“we’re going to make them fast on the ground” “good” “so we’re going to give them a prehensile tail, almost always found in tree-dwelling animals, which it’ll have to constantly and consciously carry out of the way” “what” “what, it sounds perfect”
“we’re going to make them big and tanky” “that’s great” “but despite the massive energy consumption required to keep up that body mass, they won’t eat vegetation” “oh” “also we’re going to make the body shape overgrown and armoured, so that it gets stuck on absolutely everything, can’t lift itself out of pitfalls, can’t use its tail for balance, and falls over easily”
“so what does a plektos do” “it costs us money”
“how about we take a sighthound, a breed of dog whose characteristic speed is only possible through its small size and fragility and make it… big and tanky”
“georgios you goddamn genius. here are my keys. go to my house and fuck my wife.”
Or even worse, pointing out that my characters aren’t nearly as multidimensional as they could and should be:
Why would I want to have sex with any of these people, again?
I just met you like, two weeks ago, and you haven’t told me anything about yourself except your political views, and in Kalt/Kala’s case a backstory. How can anyone smang that. I don’t know you.
On the same level I can’t learn heck all about Suzane on account of every time I so much as breathe in her direction it’s ‘I’M CHASTE’
Me: hey Suzane what u want for lunch? we got grain, shit grain, rabbit, deer foot-
Suzane: GOTTA WAIT TIL MARRIAGE
Breden: rebellion? rebellion? rebellion. poison. helots. helots? helots. no children. i’m charming. please sleep with me.
Kalt: kill? kill? can I? smang? hello? i’m sad. want some smang? we’ll die.
Suzane: i’m being insensitive. helots? i guess? no smang. no smang. sword. i suppose, poachers. chaste. i’m so chaste. please don’t touch me.
Elery: tactics, tactics, tactics. zvad. breden. be nice to breden or no tactics.
Radmar: angery >:( angry. breden bad. angry. poric. poric. mushrooms. dont talk to me i hate everyone
Who are you people? Do you people have opinions on other things? Like is mayonnaise acceptable? Or what art is? Can anyone here sing? Hello, maybe I just want in on those shrooms. If just to deal with you people sometimes.
I literally cry laughing every time I read those. And my ego dies a little, too. 
Because my friend has helpfully pointed out areas where my writing or worldbuilding genuinely does need to improve. Those things, I didn’t do on purpose. Those things I’ll try to do differently (or, in the case of the Plektoi, hurriedly retcon or justify) in future games. Fail again, fail better…and enjoy it, because it is good enough.
We’re all on a journey as writers, mon frere. We’re hopefully better than we were yesterday, and we’re probably not as good as we’re going to be tomorrow. I know what a gut punch it can be to get a harsh review, especially when it touches on an area where we (a) are pretty sure we have improved or (b) had the feeling that we still need to improve. Or both at the same time. But hang in there, keep writing, keep growing your skills and your audience. We’re all here with you.